Saturday afternoon, and I'm half listening to Radio Five Live. That Midlands twang sounds familiar. Spurs v Man United, and this pundit's rather good. He's anticipating the action, explaining why the Spurs midfield is so mobile, painting a vivid picture of a free kick 35 yards out, a touch to the left of the D, even telling us the time like a fully-fledged presenter. John Murray, the commentator, is happy to have him there. He tells us it's the first time they've been together this season; an old couple reunited.

Welcome back Stan Collymore. Soon after "the incident", as his friends at Radio 5 prefer to call it, Collymore was dropped by the BBC. One Dog-Day afternoon too many led to years of enforced dog-day afternoons. Of course, nobody wanted to employ him back in 2004. It was just too risky. After all, if there had been half a chance of spotting Motty butt naked doing the do down the local car park, he would have been off Match of the Day quicker than you can say sheepkskin coat. The BBC is a family corporation, and Lord Reith's legendary principles never extended to educate, inform, entertain and engage in sexual intercourse in public places.

Thankfully, the BBC believes in rehabilitation. Now he's back as a prime-time summariser and contributing to The Monday Night Club. I've always had a soft spot for Stan - a dangerous thing to admit about a man with such history. After all, dogging wasn't his first bit of form. Perhaps the most notorious incident occurred when he hit his then girlfriend, Ulrika Jonsson, in a bar. It is now impossible to write about Collymore without the prefix "woman-beater". How often must he replay that moment in his head? It became his albatross. He had a breakdown a year later and by 30 he had retired.

It's not coincidental that both the sickening thumping of Ulrika and his sexual antics were performed in public. There was something so self-destructive about him, as if he was forcing us to look at his worst side, demanding that we reject him. At least George Best had the sense to hit his women in private.

The Best comparison is not totally random. Collymore was no Best but he was a great talent. At Nottingham Forest he scored an incredible 41 goals in 65 league games, then, after a record-breaking £8.5m transfer, at Liverpool a still impressive 28 in 63 games. His flame flickered tall and proud before he brutally snuffed it out.

With that self-destructive streak came a desperate vulnerability. It's a strange thing to say about a man who acted so stupidly so often, but he was almost too intelligent for football. Eloquent, restless, forever examining his motives and behaviour - and finding them, quite rightly, not coming up to scratch.

I interviewed him in 2001, three years after the Ulrika incident. He was unlike any footballer I've met. He spoke quietly, said he fancied going into politics for Labour, was full of regrets but knew he was responsible for everything that had happened to him - good and bad.

He promised comebacks which never materialised.

In his autobiography he wrote about reaching his nadir and sending 10 friends a text message to say he'd had enough. "The sun was coming up. I got out of the car and looped the rope around a good thick branch of the tree ... I didn't know how to climb it, but I had learnt how to make a hangman's noose from the internet." He changed his mind. He returned home, walked past the policemen who were waiting in the hallway anxious for his safety, went upstairs and wept his heart out.

Collymore is not the first pundit to be dropped for his sins then rehabilitated. Geoffrey Boycott was convicted of beating up his girlfriend and was pulled off the airwaves. Boycott was always a fine commentator and it was no surprise when he was welcomed back. But however much you enjoy his banter, warm human being wouldn't be the first words that spring to mind.

I'd be happy never to hear racist Ron Atkinson's voice again (ironically, Marcel Desailly, the footballer he dismissed as a "fucking lazy, thick nigger", was one of the brightest of his day and has gone on to be an impressive match analyst). Rodney Marsh was removed for making a crap joke about David Beckham rejecting a move to Newcastle because of the trouble caused by the Toon Army in Asia. I don't miss him either.

But with Collymore there's a difference. He reminds me of the penitent whiskey priest in Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory - flawed to hell but still capable of acts of grace. He really is in the last-chance saloon now. Be good to yourself this time, Stan.